


50/50

by clawstoagunfight



Series: Worth 1000 Words [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Ficlet, M/M, Mama Stilinski Feels, Past Character Death, Prompt Fic, References to Illness, Stilinski Family Feels, mentions of illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 22:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clawstoagunfight/pseuds/clawstoagunfight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has a 50/50 chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	50/50

**Author's Note:**

> Un beta'd, so all of the mistakes are mine.
> 
> This is a 1000 word prompt based off of the title.
> 
> Apologizing in advance for any and all feels this causes.

The first time he starts to forget things, he doesn’t really think anything of it. He just takes a little bit more Adderall and passes it off on being way more stressed out than any seventeen year old needs to be. It’s normal, he tells himself. He’s just taking on too much and not getting enough sleep. He doesn’t think about how he keeps losing his train of thought more and more. He’s always had problems focusing. It’s nothing to worry about.

So he doesn’t. He keeps going through the motions, doing impossible things with impossible beings until the danger’s over and he starts to sleep a little bit more. He starts remembering again, and things get easier.

He doesn’t think about it again until he starts noticing the movements. They are just small things; so small it takes him too long to notice. It isn’t like Stiles is a still person to begin with. He’s in constant motion. He flails, he gestures, he is versed in the art of body language. He knows his body, knows how it works—and when his hands, or his legs start to twitch of their own accord, he notices.

He notices, and it _terrifies_ him. It scares him like nothing else in his life ever has, except for maybe one thing—just _one_ —because nothing else has the ability to completely and utterly incapacitate him as swiftly as this. He doesn’t like to think about it— _hates_ it—because even though he knows his mother’s death wasn’t actually his fault, he grew up in the shadow of her disease. The symptoms got so much worse after he was born; he was the catalyst. _Him_. He watched the disease decimate her life—crush it, break her until she was just a shade of the person who gave him life—until it was too much, and she finally fell to the illness.

There’s always a voice in the back of his mind whispering to him about her, about the disease. He’s never told anyone just how scared it makes him—just to even _think_ that he may end up like her. Not even his father knows how much it petrifies him. He doesn’t know that the real reason Stiles had panic attacks after his mother died is because every time he thought of her, he knew that he could end up _just like her_ —that the disease could eat away at his life just as thoroughly as it did hers. He doesn’t ever tell his dad; doesn’t want him to have to face the possibility of watching the only other person he has wither away in the same cruel manner as the woman he loved.

50/50. Those are Stiles’ chances. Those are the odds that are forever playing around in his head.

He could get tested, he knows. He could finally, once and for all, find out if he’ll spend the rest of his life slowly working toward a painful death. Normally, he's the type of person that pushes and pushes, that picks at everything until it bleeds. In everything else, he has to know everything—all. But in this, there’s a part of him that thinks not knowing would be easier. It would give him time; give him the chance at a life.

But what kind of a life would it really be?—to have the constant fear and worry sitting on your shoulders, just waiting for the moment that it all comes crashing down and buries him under the onslaught. No. It’s better to know, better to face this. It’s one thing he knows he can’t run away from, because it’s _inside_ of him.

It could be.

50/50.

The day of the testing looms closer and closer. Stiles doesn’t know what to feel, what to think. He goes through the motions of his life, but he never tells anyone why he’s a constant ball of anxiety, why every time his finger or his eye twitches, his heartbeat doubles in his chest. He tries to be careful, tries to be the same Stiles he’s always been, but he can tell when his father starts to see through it, when Scott starts to ask him questions, when Derek starts _looking_ at him more.

He goes to the hospital and takes the test, all the while knowing that this is it. This is the moment that will decide the rest of his life. It’s all or nothing—a full life or a slow death. He’s desperately trying not to remember the way his mother’s eyes looked the last time he saw her, or about how her hand wouldn’t stop shaking between his even while she was breathing her last.

He sees Derek waiting for him in the lobby, notices as he leaves the hospital and starts to walk that the other man follows, matches his stride. The silence is too much, makes him feel like nails are scraping at the inside of his skull. He stops and faces Derek. “How did you know?”

Derek just looks at him—one of the same looks he’s been receiving for months now. “I could smell the anxiety. It’s always been there with you, but it didn’t go away after things settled down—it got stronger.”

It’s the only explanation Stiles gets and maybe it’s the only one he needs. “I’m scared.”

Derek nods infinitesimally. “I know.”

They start to walk again. “Scott said that the first time he smelled Gerard, he knew about his cancer.” Stiles is fishing and he knows it, but he lets the unasked question hang in the air.

“He knew what that kind of cancer smelled like.” Stiles glares a little at his non-answer. “I never met your mom,” is all he adds.

“Derek,” Stiles has been thinking about this for a long time. “If I have it—if I’m sick—will you give me the bite?”

Derek stops. “You know the likelihood of the bite’s success rate?”

“Yeah.” Stiles says, “50/50.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, any and all comments and/or criticisms are accepted and appreciated.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
